Black Butler II - Season 2 - Episode 9 - Review: "Hollow Butler"

Black Butler II - Season 2 - Episode 9 - Review: "Hollow Butler"

Black Butler had an interesting if somewhat off episode the last time around as it dealt with Alois' background and pushed him off the stage for a bit while letting Claude take over things for a bit. Claude's decidedly off in general as we see here from the start as he almost has a big song and dance number of the very minor change of tint in the color of the main room in the mansion which is almost imperceptible to most people. Everything that has happened has left Ciel feeling unsettled as well and there's a difficulty in adjusting back to what he considers a normal day because of all of it.

So what better to deal with than a new mystery to solve, this time involving a spate of cases where people's eyes are being gouged out. While this could be interesting, it kicks off by introducing us to a new grim reaper that's arrived on the scene to cause chaos, a young spectacled man named Ronald Knox who crashes in while riding a motorized lawnmower that's easily dealt with. In a way, seeing this device in this time kind of causes you to roll the old eyes and it takes a bit to get back into sync with the episode because of it. Sometimes Black Butler does something so out of whack in a real-world sense that it's hard to reconcile and it takes you out of the show. Supernatural elements are assuredly different, but bringing in a motorized lawnmower like this doesn't fit in the same category.